Towards a calibrated problem set for Tik Tik
Collaborative Problem Solving
- What is it?
- a group goal that needs to be accomplished through problem solving
- a single individual cannot solve the problem alone
- no routine plan is available for the problem
Collaborative Problem Solving
- How important is it?
One of the essential 21st century skills (according to AT21CS)
- Why is it so important?
Many contemporary problems require teams of individuals with different expertise and background
Collaborative Planning
- envision alternative courses of action
- select and commit to one of these courses of action
- these can be jointly costructed and must be jointly agreed upon in the case of collaborative planning
- the problem difficulty is a function of, among others, how many alternative courses of action there are
Tik Tik: A Collaborative Planning Task
Project goal
- Create a problem set, which is:
- within the general population’s abilities
- varies systematically in difficulty
- takes about an hour to complete
- Identify level parameters that determine level difficulty
Designing problems
Factors that affect problem difficulty:
- number of barriers and number of barrier intersections
- start and goal locations
Varying problem difficulty systematically
- vary the minimum number of blockages necessary to solve a level (optimal solution length)
- vary how many unique courses of action there are in a level (search space size)
Problem creator and solver
Study
- 29 levels: 9 warmup levels + 20 main levels (between 1 and 5 blockages)
- 46 subjects (online platform Prolific)
- about 1.5 hours of total time
- there is a blockage limit and an optimal blockage number (i.e., optimal solution length) for each level
- subjects received 1 bonus point for a correct solution and 3 bonus points for an optimal solution